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- Title
“KLARA MILICH” AND THE TURGENEVIAN STATUE MYTH.
- Authors
Faraghi, Eva
- Abstract
Ivan Turgenev’s ambiguous representation of the supernatural in his novella “Klara Milich” (1883) has long puzzled readers and critics alike. This article proposes a reading of “Klara Milich” as a meta-literary, tragically self-parodic narrative and interprets its perplexing ghostly phenomena as the result of a stymied ambition to force amorphous reality into an ordered and intelligible mold. Just as civilization (as well as art) attempts to freeze and aestheticize reality, the story’s protagonist repeatedly indicates that he perceives Klara as more of a statue than a real woman. The article conducts a close reading of “Klara Milich” in order to show that, while amateur photographer Aratov—a parodic self-portrait of Turgenev—seeks to draw meaning out of the chaos of Klara’s life, his weak will, delicate psyche, and mechanical, dispassionate attempts to capture and reproduce reality cause him to fall short of this fundamentally artistic endeavor. The aesthetic rearrangement of chaotic reality as a means of coming to terms with it is, for the protagonist, no more than an uncritical recreation of its disorder, and yields only meaninglessness and destruction.
- Subjects
TURGENEV, Ivan Sergeevich, 1818-1883; MYTHOLOGY; CIVILIZATION; AESTHETICS; MEANINGLESSNESS (Philosophy)
- Publication
Slavic & East European Journal, 2021, Vol 65, Issue 3, p417
- ISSN
0037-6752
- Publication type
Article